


push on into that mystery

by damnslippyplanet



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 15:31:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7850797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnslippyplanet/pseuds/damnslippyplanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Will can see some things, sometimes, about some people, if he tries and if they give him a few dangling threads to pull to unravel their secrets.  But he’s not some kind of walking gaydar, and if he were he wouldn’t tell people what he knew anyway because privacy is a thing.  And beyond and above all that, Hannibal Lecter is a smooth cliff face without handholds.</i>
</p><p>Or: The one where Will has five conversations about Hannibal, sexuality, himself and the combination thereof, that are varying degrees of awkward, and one conversation that isn't.   A wee contribution to Hannigram Acethetic's Hannigram aro/ace celebration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	push on into that mystery

**Author's Note:**

> While Will uses the term "asexual" for Hannibal here, and Hannibal would probably not use any particular term for himself (the smug bastard does hate his labels), grey-ace is probably more appropriate, but I can't quite convince myself that either of these two know that term. And it doesn't matter for the purposes of this story. Might matter if I revisit this 'verse, though, so I mention it here.
> 
> The song title comes from the Dar Williams song "[After All](http://darwilliams.com.s16062.gridserver.com/releases/music/lyrics-the-green-world/#collapse-three)": _Go ahead, push your luck / Say what it is you've gotta say to me / We will push on into that mystery / And it’ll push right back / And there are worse things than that ._

1\. Beverly Katz

 

“That’s not really how it works,” Will says, careful and precise.  It takes a hell of a lot to get him drunk but he’s not far off and the edges of his words want to melt into each other.

Beverly frowns into her glass and says, “That doesn’t seem fair.  It only works for bloody murder shit?”

He _could_ try to explain the thing his mind does, that it’s not just murder but it’s also not an all-access pass to go running around inside people’s heads.  He can see some things, sometimes, about some people, if he tries and if they give him a few dangling threads to pull to unravel their secrets.  But he’s not some kind of walking gaydar, and if he were he wouldn’t tell people what he knew anyway because privacy is a thing.  And beyond and above all that, Hannibal Lecter is a smooth cliff face without handholds.  Where some people project, he’s just - blank.  

But that’s a lot of words, and his head’s a little blurry, and as he tries to put them all together it sounds like a lecture.  He’s not entirely sure about this being-friends thing, this going-out-for-drinks-together thing, but it’s been a while since it even seemed worth trying.  And he’s pretty sure it’s not going to happen again if he goes into Professor Graham mode at Beverly.

So he just shakes his head and says, “Not exactly. But I don’t get anything like that off him, gay or straight.  I think he’s too professional to let anything slip at work.”

“Huh.  Well, Jimmy’s going to be disappointed you don’t know.  He’s pretty sure no straight man would wear those ties.  I think he’s got money riding on it.”

Will feels a rush of warmth and gratitude toward Beverly for not pushing it.  So many people try to get him to do mind-reading party tricks like he’s a carnival freak.

By way of repayment he offers, “I’ll tell you something I can figure out easily.  The guy at your five o’clock, red shirt, would definitely go home with you if you wanted company.”

Beverly whips around so fast and un-smooth that Will nearly chokes on his drink, appraises the guy who’s been staring at her, and turns back with a shrug.  

“Cute. But I don’t ditch my friends. Tell you what, though - next time I _do_ want a wingman, I’m calling you.”

The notion of his awkward self being anyone’s wingman would be enough to make Will choke a second time, but he’s somehow run out of beer. Again.  He waves at the waitress for another round.

* * *

 

2\. Leonard Brauer

 

This would be a really good time for Will to adjust his glasses or pinch the bridge of his nose or any one of his other extensive repertoire of fidgeting motions designed to provide a little space between a statement and his reaction to it.  Unfortunately, having his hands hobbled by cuffs and chains has narrowed his gesturing options drastically.

Instead he closes his eyes for a minute, reaching for calm rationality, before opening them again to stare at his lawyer.

“I don’t usually answer that kind of question until at least the third date.”

“Cute, Mr. Graham.  But you’re still going to have to answer the question.  I can’t figure out the best strategy for you until we’ve explored all the details of your situation.”

“The details.”  Will can hear himself getting more deadpan by the moment.   “The details of whether I ever slept with my psychiatrist. Who, I keep telling you, is a serial killer.”

Brauer waits quietly.  He’s good at it.

Will’s good at it too, and he’s got absolutely nowhere else to be.

Brauer breaks first, tapping his papers back into order with a shrug.  “It would be useful information, that’s all.  Further evidence toward a serious breach of psychiatric ethics, if we decide to go that way.  Or possible motive for him framing you, if you had some kind of lovers’ spat.  If you don’t want to give me the information I need, you don’t get the best defense I can give you. That’s your call.”

“We never slept together. Never went anywhere close.  His ‘breaches of psychiatric ethics’ lie in an entirely different direction. He’d consider sleeping with a patient to be vulgar.”  

He hates having to say it, because if it’s occurred to Brauer, it’s occurred to other people, too.  It’s a conversation people are having about him in the hallways of the FBI, to add a nice little seasoning of additional naughtiness to the crimes he’s accused of.  You have to be serious talking about murder, but everyone likes a good sex scandal to spice up the morning coffee break.  

Will feels a headache coming on.  

* * *

3\. Jack Crawford

 

Jack asks _are you getting too close?_ and he knows exactly what that means.  It means something like _just how much of yourself have you put on the hook_ , or _how badly do you want your reckoning_ .  Or, hell, Jack’s not really once to mince words. If Will plays dumb he might just say _are you fucking Hannibal Lecter_ ? _Is he fucking you?_  

As if that’s the thing that matters.  

As if, as long as no one’s cock gets touched, there’s some form of coming back from the places Will’s found himself.  He can understand where Jack gets the idea, but it’s a stark reminder that there’s a line between the way most people view things and the way Hannibal does.  And that, increasingly, Will’s spending his time on the wrong side of that line.

“I know what I’m doing,” he says by way of an answer. It’s not entirely a lie, yet light-years from the truth. Like most everything he finds himself saying these days.

He thinks about saying, “We dismembered a man together. Blood and guts and bones. We transformed him into something new.  It was the most intimate thing I’ve ever been a part of.”  Just to see Jack’s face. Just to hear him explain how _that’s_ within scope for this particular plan, as long as no one’s hands wander below the belt.

Jack’s “You’ll tell me if you’re getting in over your head” isn’t a question, and Will doesn’t answer it.

Jack says something more but Will doesn’t catch it. He’s running the fingers of his left hand over the scabbed-up knuckles of his right. Remembering how gentle Hannibal had been, bandaging them.  How there had been something hungry there in his eyes, the mask slipped enough to reveal it.  But it hadn’t been what Jack’s implying. Not _quite_ that.  

* * *

 

4\. Freddie Lounds

 

Freddie’s taking notes as fast as Will can talk, and she’s practically demonic with glee, even though he’s only answering about one out of every three questions.  He doesn’t have to _like_ the devil’s bargain they’ve made: Freddie’s temporary silence in exchange for information she can shout from the rooftops once she comes back from her ‘death’.

Right now, she’s muttering something about wishing she’d been a fly on the wall for one of the dinners they’d had together, Hannibal and Alana and Will.

“Was that as cozy as it sounds?” she asks, and he’s never heard the word ‘cozy’ sound filthy before.

“I don’t know that I’d choose that particular word.”

“So give me the right one. Work with me here, Mr. Graham.  Think of it this way: The more you tell me, the less I have to guess about, and you’re not going to like my guesses.”

He considers, briefly, that since Freddie’s supposed to already be dead, it wouldn’t make any real difference to the world if she actually were.  Which isn’t true, but the half-second where he believes it worries him.

“Tense,” he offers, finally.  “Instead of a conversation among three people, it was three slightly different conversations all happening simultaneously.  Every word meant several things at once depending on who heard it and who said it.”

Freddie scribbles, puts the pen aside, and considers him with an expression he doesn’t much like.

“You know, I wasn’t entirely sure at first who she was sleeping with.  It had to be one of you.  Unless it was both of you, but she doesn’t strike me as the type.”

“I have nothing to say about Alana’s private life.  She wasn’t part of our agreement.”  

Does Freddie even know how fragile bones are, how little pressure it takes to choke?  It’s not as if this particular operation doesn’t already have a body count.

Freddie rolls her eyes at him and picks up the pen again to tap it against her notepad.  “Leave her out of it, then.  What about you and Hannibal?  How far did your little honeypot operation go?”

He breathes a careful count, three in and three out.

“We made lomo saltado from you and ate it together,” he says, calm and steady as Hannibal would be.  “It’s a delicious dish. Good with a Malbec.  You should try it sometime. Maybe you can include the recipe in an appendix.”

She stares at him, writes down “Malbec” in a careful hand, and ends the interview shortly afterwards when it becomes apparent that she’s hit a wall.

* * *

  
5\. Molly Foster

 

It had seemed like a good idea, or as good an idea as could be created from the scraps available to them.   _One conversation - ask whatever you need to - I’ll be as honest as I can - and then please, let’s never talk about this again._

Maybe not the _absolute_ healthiest option, but there’s not really a standard couples therapy technique for this sort of situation.  It had seemed like it might work.

Except that for all the questions Molly had asked - the origins of Will’s scars, what happens in his nightmares, what the encephalitis had felt like, how he’d survived imprisonment, what he needs from her, what she should say if Walter had asked, so many questions that it was clear she’d been holding them in reserve and the pressure had been building up - she never asked the really hard question.

He knows she wonders; Molly’s an open book now, slow to give trust but then giving it with wide-open arms and utter sincerity.  And she’s read the books about Hannibal; she reads all of them and warns Will about what’s in them, so he can be prepared if anyone corners him for comments.

But she never asks what, precisely, he and Hannibal were to each other.  Not in that one conversation, not when she gently warns him what each new book speculates about them, not then or ever after.

He’s grateful that she doesn’t ask, since he has no idea what he would have told her.  It worries him that he’s fairly sure that’s exactly why she doesn’t ask.

* * *

  
6\. Hannibal Lecter

 

Hannibal reads the books now. And there are a lot of books - nothing like an escape, killing another killer, and absconding with a possibly-insane FBI profiler to spur a renewed interest in trashy true-crime books about Hannibal Lecter.

Will would rather they not read the books at all. These days, if they’re cornered for comment, they have bigger problems on their hands than giving an awkward sound bite before they get hauled off in straitjackets.  But Hannibal’s ego remains approximately the size of Buenos Aires, and he can’t be stopped.  The books pile up.

Occasionally when he’s feeling particularly obnoxious he insists on reading chapters aloud late at night, as they lie curled together in the bed that’s become a lot less awkward to share since they had the conversation that made many things about Hannibal click into place for Will.  Hannibal had always seemed so far beyond labels of any sort that he’d never thought to give him that one, and _asexual_ still may not be quite right, but it’s close enough.  It gives Will a framework for understanding.

On this particular night, Hannibal’s reading an extended passage drawn from some fever dream of Frederick Chilton’s, about how the drawings found in Hannibal’s home after his escape clearly indicate his homosexual tendencies.  There’s some extremely purple prose about the likelihood that on more than one occasion, Will had stayed at Hannibal’s house after a dinner party and gotten up to some sort of kinky shenanigans in Hannibal’s murder-basement-slash-sex-dungeon.

Will snorts and kicks at Hannibal in annoyance.  “I hardly ever even _went_ to your dinner parties, and I know for a fact you have never in your life had your own personal sex dungeon.”

“Certainly not in that basement.  It would have been entirely unhygienic.”

Hard to argue that.  Will subsides, squirming around until he can rest his head on Hannibal’s stomach comfortably.  Hannibal carries on reading until he gets to another section of speculation about their supposed sex life, which Frederick is one step away from describing as a series of satanic blood rituals, until Will’s reduced to indignant splutters after a flowery description of Hannibal’s _apparent desperate hunger for Will Graham’s body and soul_.

“Someone ought to take that man’s computer away.  Who says things like that?  I mean, other than you.”

“He’s not wrong,” Hannibal says mildly, but he does put the book aside, thank god, in favor of stroking Will’s forehead instead. “If I believed in the soul, I’d want yours.”

“It’s all yours.  No one else wants it anyway.”

Will considers Hannibal, his expression entirely easy to read now, even at this odd angle.  It’s hard to remember there was a time when he didn’t know what to make of the man.  When he didn’t understand the nature of Hannibal’s desire for him - entirely possessive, entirely hungry, not so much _lacking_ a sexual component as complete in itself, without any need or room for sex.  

“I would have known what to do with that kind of hunger,” he says quietly.  “This is harder to figure out.”

Hannibal’s hand stills briefly and then starts again, weaving through Will’s hair, gentle on his scalp as he says, “I know it is.”  

They’re still making sense of this, both of them - two grown men well into their adulthood,  figuring out what love without sex looks like.  Sometimes it feels ridiculous to Will.  The conversations that are sometimes needed to figure out Hannibal’s boundaries make him feel like a fumbling teenager again, not sure what is permitted or desired, not sure how to be.

But sometimes it feels just like this.  Closeness, warmth, and love, and the assurance that the rest will work itself out, somehow, with patience and time.  Will reaches up to still Hannibal’s hand bringing it down to his lips to brush a kiss across Hannibal’s fingers instead, and smiles up at him.  

“Enough of Frederick for the night, okay? You’ll rot both our brains.”

The book stays on the nightstand and Hannibal reaches for another one instead - Spanish poetry, of which Will’s French lets him understand about every seventh word, but there’s a lot of _amor_ involved.  

Will keeps hold of the hand he’s got, forcing Hannibal to read and flip the pages awkwardly with his left hand, but Hannibal doesn’t complain.  Will shuts his eyes and lets Hannibal’s voice wash over and through him, until the rest of the world filters out of his awareness.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come play with me on [Tumblr](http://damnslippyplanet.tumblr.com).


End file.
